Franchise Tags and Tom Curran on Tom Brady's Tough Sitch

I struggle with it. I gotta be honest with you. Well, we know Greg would never do that. He's on a firm time schedule for eating. I mean, we only have so many days left, so many meals left. We're just gonna miss him. Gets to be two and Greg starts twitching. I wouldn't peg Greg as as needing it either. It's it's a late It's a weight loss and health management scenario of rom extremely balanced and health thing. Love you though, you know what was that? Mar? Here we go? I

could we all could? Hey, that's the season? What do we call its? Body quest? Season? Body Quest? Absolutely, we're all on the body Quest. What do we got coming up? Already involved in it? Signed up for gym membership. Gym membership, nice um West. You have a baby on the way, and you have softball season coming, which I know you know. I hope that you'll be a part of Got to get the bob right, got to get the bod tight. All of this is true. Yes, I I do. I

have some work to do in the bod tightening department. Greg, You're deeper into your forties now. If you want to continue to do your runs, you just got I am looking to mix it up because I don't know if you've heard about this. Runs are the most boring thing I've ever made, and not good for you. The pounding on the pave, too too much of it to stitch on the joints. After a while, it depends on the surface. You can go to a track with a you know, a more sponge of it. Too much of it's bad.

A couple of things. We're obviously we are back, well not obviously. I mean there's nothing as a listener that you could tell the difference. We are back from Indianapolis. We're in Los Angeles and it was a great time of the combine. I thought I got the vibe and Mark you and I went out with some UH colleagues on Wednesday night before we flew out on Thursday, and we were out the night before Tuesday as well. I had never seen Indie so on fire, and I mean,

without again putting anybody's name out there. The coaches are flying, You've got scouts, You've got you've got some gms hanging around. People were out and looking to get at it. I I talked to one person in the know, little Peter King, that this is the coach's favorite week of the year, is that Indie week? Well at the owners meetings, and I'm sure this is enjoyable for them too, but they often bring their entire families and so there's a lot of extra stuff to do and probably some boundaries put

around them on some level. At the combine, I sensed to no undres on anyone, And it's one of those. It was one combine I don't really remember one like this where afterwards we were on a text thread, UH multiple investigative text of our own and what we all got up stories on top of your actually happened. Try to unpack it all. It was pretty dense with um

memorable moments, let's put it that way. I had a lot of favorite memories from the third Wednesday Night, um, but the one that stands out to me in the most vivid is We're at the famous bar hangout area Prime in Indy and Mark's next to me, and I think I'm kind of in the middle of a conversation or just maybe looking down at my phone, and then I hear Marco and there's an exact quotes I wrote at my phone exactly at the moment. Let's make some

way for my man. And then Mark lands his hand on this guy's shoulder in a really familiar wife very crowded room. So I was doing him a favorite, and then Sean Payton swings his head up and then looks over at Mark. Can be expecting to see someone he knows very well, but my man. What I did was

and we didn't stop him here helping him. I formed a corridor for him to get crowd you've been in Prime, it is highly annoying that Sean Payton is not six ft ten like some of these people rolling around the room. So it was like, let's make a corridor for the guy. I would call it a smile, but it was kind of like a little bit surprise well, I've had three or four interactions with Sean Payton, and they're all about that way in various settings. So I think one more. Yeah,

that could be a problem. Next time you see you might even say I love you, bro. I've seen several coaches give Mark that look. Well, listen, you only have a short amount. As Gregg says, there's only so many days left too uh, eat yogurt at a certain time and talk to not into John Lynch gave you that, gave a look perfect a reason in a bathroom walking through uh the hotel. But Mark, Mark and I had um Greg, you were out with some other friends West.

I think you took it easy on Wednesday night. At this point in my life, I'm like a veteran NBA player. You just can't expect back to back, back to backs now. I I'm on load management. Yeah, no, I get that. I totally got that. But Mark maybe is on some the same age as your performance enhancers, perhaps that he's able to do these back to back Well, Mark has taken quite a bit of time off lately, so may he may be like rested and ready to go. What

does that mean? Well, like Jordan's after he went away, from the game. You had your dalliance with baseball for like the last eight months. Yeah, I think it's true. And I also think Wes you were you were an All Star. One of the nights I had quite anime with you, so that was a that was the major factor for Yeah. I could not make it the second night, but that Yeah, the night out, we ended up at a party that was a more kind of exclusive affair.

There were in depth conversations with certain head coaches which you can't be shared here, but it was. It was a good one mine week, fun week. It was got out just in time. I feel like, alright, a lot coming to you guys, the listeners. Tom Cerrn, who was super plugged in, great New England sports guy who works for NBC Sports Boston. With all this Tom Brady stuff swirling, we wanted to get somebody in the know just to have a conversation about what's going on. Uh. This weekend

and throughout Combine Week brought some reports. ESPN's Jeff Darlington, our former colleague, comes to mind that I think Darlington's wording was pretty strong that he'd be surprised if Tom Brady's back with the shocked even stronger than I remembered. Uh. And Tom Brady's agent was an indie doing the rounds, meeting with teams. So you know, I remember kind of throwing it out there to you, Greg back in early November, and you dismissed it. And that's not saying that you

were wrong or right or whatever. But even then I said it more just to kind of, you know, get you fired up a little bit. But are you surprised where we are now that the kind of tenor I dismissed what that he would ever leave that he was leaving like stop it. It It was one of those Greg responses. It was more that we didn't know anything. Then I've kind of been open that I think it'd been interesting to start a new chapter with him. I I don't know. I don't think anyone knows. I don't have a Well,

Tom current is plugged in up there. So we're gonna talk to Tom all about it. But before we do that, how about some news you're about Carl Terrible. Why would somebody do something like that? Well it was the Jets. Oh my god, he just couldn't have taken eat him up inside atrophe. I know, let's just start with such promise. Then Donogans modeled seasons over by game three. I'm talking about the word of Veronica, his family. That's a catastrophe. Of course. Hit his episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. I

got about forty seven tweets this morning. Did you see Curb last night? I hadn't, but I went back in watched it, And basically the hook of the episode is that one of his golfing buddies, who like Larry David in real life Larry on the show, is also a big Jets fan, and the guy, because of the Jets uh dysfunction and struggles, ends his life. And Larry um knew this, knew why he actually did it, and the whole how how deep does it go and how far

does it show Larry David's Jet fan bona fides. A big part of the end of the episode revolves around Austin Saverian Jenkins Jenkins touchdown fumble controversy against the Patriots about four years ago and a fury about that. So check it out if you're jetsmin or an NFL fan, because it's very funny. Somehow that show is still incredible. It's the best season in half a decade. Although I cannot get my hbo um device to load and so

I cannot watch it. I tried to start at forty seven times last night and finally gave up WiFi issue. Maybe let's get to some NFL news. We'll start with Jacksonville Jaguars, who have a decision to make it. It appears uh Yannick and Gockway he doesn't want to play with the Jags anymore, and he tweeted Monday morning that he has no interest in a long term deal in Jacksonville. He wrote that the Jaguars are aware of this. Duval I love you and gave you guys everything I got.

I'm thankful for the journey and look forward to continuing my career elsewhere. Now that doesn't mean he's gone, though Chris Wesley, because the team, according to rap sheet, UH plans to use the franchise tag on in Gockway, so he might not want to be around. But it doesn't mean the Jaguars have to trade him, or do they. They just went through this with a star defender with Jalen Ramsey. Do they hold the cards or do they not hold the cards? Anytime you can wield the franchise

tag you hold the cards. But this is a franchise with cap issues. This may be one of the three or four worst. Uh, they're in maybe worse shaped than than all but three or four franchise in the UNFL, and maybe even worse than that. They don't have that much talent on the roster and yet they're up against the cap even though they have a quarterback making peanuts.

How does that happen? Well, because they have another quarterback not making peanuts, who uh you know he isn't gonna play for them, probably much this year, Nick Foles, who knows, maybe they trade him away for nothing. But to your point, West, how do you draft? In Gockway in Jalen Ramsey? And who am I forgetting about? That was a good Jaguars draft pick that they've lost over the last couple of years.

I mean they've they've won about at the lowest rate of any team in the NFL except for one year, for seven years, and they haven't developed their homegrown players. And it's very rare. You see, like such an obvious response from sources that in Gockway tweeted this out this morning and literally three minutes later, Adam Schefter had a team source from the Jaguars saying they were going to trade him. That was the timeline. It was like that

was like, oh, that's that's okay. You know he's saying that. But every team out there know that we're gonna use this tag because we want to at least trade him. They also lost Telvin Smith to a somewhat surprising retirement, and you know, they their core is gone, their defense. Remember it seems like every preview show we were tracking this abominable run defense down the stretch that was giving

up like two d and nineteen yards a game. And you know, they got rid of some of the people making decisions and they kept up Maron and I have to wonder what they called up. But when you're hearing Agaqway say I just don't want to be part of this organization, there's a lot of vestiges of old issues. And Mike Gerrifilo talked about, you know, Nagakway and the Jaguars, the contract and talks if they've ever even been around,

have been contentious. So you know, I don't know what you do unless you're you know, you keep for one year, you sign and trade him if you can. But if you're him, You're stuck playing in a contract year again where you want to go. You're making good money, what is it five? But any sort of injury late season messes up your future. Alan Robinson was was the guy was trying to think of who is the true number

one receiver who they developed. They can open up some more money by cutting uh A J. Boyer, which might happen, but they've had a lot of swinging mss like Andrew Nora, and I don't think he'll be that hard to trade.

He'll be expensive to get. But if you can trade Frank Clark on the tag, which is the case what happened last year, right, and then if you can trade d ford in both of those guys um whether they were on the tag or not, for its timing was different costs A pick and a big contract in got way to me, seems almost exactly in their tier of player, and someone's gonna give up I think a second or third round pick, whatever it's gonna be, and or more than that, I think I think he could get a

first maybe considering his age he's not yet twenty five years old. It's this tricky because you gotta give what sixty million guaranteed in in twenty plus a year two. So it's just like really expensive. But some some team there's too much cap space. I'm gonna say it a million times, like, so you gotta spend the cap space

to use it. I think the one thing that Gregor said about the Jaguars that is the seed of so many of these issues is when he took Leonard four Nett, a running back over their choice of quarterback X Y or Z. You could have changed the organization third round pick and got way. They've had some swings and misses, but he was not one of them. He's actually at thirty seven and a half sacks and four seasons with the Jaguars. He's actually closing in on the team sack

record all time. And you know what, you ain't gonna be around much longer. Sounds like in other news speaking of guys and the franchise tag and what's their future, I don't know. A j Green and the Cincinnati Bengals seemed to be at an impass. The Bengals currently planned

to use the franchise tag on the wide receiver. Sources tell ESPN's Dan Graziano and Jeremy Fowler the Bengals want Green and Cincinnati in two thousand twenty UM, and the tag again is good scratch because people saying scratch anymore. I don't know. It's first I've heard scratching along them. He would be getting that bag? Is that good? That's that's Greg, you listened to the hip hop. Give me

a good term, I mean getting that bag. Just doesn't really have that bag, young man, just confusing too well, we're just too old for that. I know, it's fine, it's fine, you can, you can. The tag is estimated to be worth around a young and half million. Uh yeah, there's there's got to be a middle ground. You're in a weird purgatory. Too young for scratch, too old for I'm a man without a country. UM eighteen and a half million would be his franchise number. Besides, have until

July fifteenth to reach a long term deal. You can start tagging dudes on Thursday. So this is all happening right now. Anyway. Green turns thirty two in July. He hasn't played much in two years. Greg makes sense as a short term guy for Cincinnati with a new quarterback coming in, but again, will he use his leverage to try to make a deal to get out of there. It sounds like he won't because he he did say publicly he would be fine with the franchise tag earlier.

And how much does he have a thirty two coming off a completely miss Yeah, I think I think that's part of it too, And I don't He's never been someone who's complained about being on the Bengals or said that he's been treated poorly, or says that ownership is um a problem. He's He's always said he's liked his experience there to be fair. And that offense, I feel like we've overhyped some Bengals offenses over the year. No, but Joe Burrow mixing green boyd Ross well, Joe Burrow

can play that. Everything just hinges on that. Yeah, but I'm in. I'm wanting to watch them week one and we you know it could be fun. Now. An offensive line that gave up that was responsible for more sacks than any line in the league. That's a problem. They're getting a little healthier along the line too. I I'd still I'm assuming the coaching staff is talented. I didn't

see a hint of that last NI. And they have they well because It's like, I want to give them the benefit of the doubt because it seemed like every a it's the Bengals and you're not getting a lot of support hitting the ground as a first year staff. To begin with, you lost a j Green all year. You you got stuck in an Andy Dalton snail where you benched him for someone even more milk toast. So it's like, I, they's a young coaching staff of guys with not a pedigree of winning, so it's hard to

give him the benefit of the doubt. He showed a little something very late, but man, it's not writing them off. Soud What what am I? What am I? You want to see the Week one go ahead? I will allow you to do that. You can be Bengals Browns. Browns aren't getting that, you know, nice Week one on CBS treatment. I don't need. I don't need last year might have with the CBS five Mark, welcome back, Welcome back to

my corner from last year. You're back in the ten am Sunday window on the West Coast over and over again. But I think you know that I don't. I am fine with this. Yeah, back to let's prove something before we're you know much bally Hood and thrown in front of like Tony Room getting massacred in week one total the Spirodidas zone. That's fine. Speaking of Andy Dalton, you know, this is a crazy year. We will never we could

work here another ten years. I don't know if the offseason will ever feature this many name brand quarterbacks just completely kind of either twisting in the wind or there being some type of uh, you know, doubt about their future with their current team. It's pretty wild, and Dalton is one of those names out there. He's obviously not

long for Cincinnati. Where will he go well? According to rap Sheet, three potential suitors for the long time storting starring QB have emerged, including the Chicago Bears, the Indianapolis Colts,

and the New England Patriots. The New England Patriots of of course, the Bears um on that on that topic, they put their faith behind Mitch Drabinski at the end of the season, but uh, as Combine Week rolled on, you started to hear the expected whispers that yeah, we're not cutting Mitch Drabinsky, but will be damned if he's going to be the guy that we live and die with in By the way, I asked directly, Matt nag you this uh last week? I said, are you going

to go to the town the whole route? What was his response? I don't think he answered me. Didn't get an answer. We're only as the enemy. We're only a couple of years away from checks um annual. Why can't we find out of seven billion people on Earth thirty two to play quarterback? And now, for the first time since I remember following football, we've got more quarterbacks than chairs in the game of musical chimps. There are too

many starting quarterbacks in the NFL now. I mean, if this list of teams that ian through out there, and it's early, I don't think Dalton is any of these teams, you know, first choice. If he was in Chicago, he'd obviously be the backup. If it was with the Cult or the Patriots, maybe he's kind of a fallback plan depending on what else happens. But it's it's still great news for Andy Dalton. I mean, these are great, these

are good. These are upgrades from the Bengals. His chances of starting, you know, meaningful the member games are in the playoffs. It has gone up because I think he's gonna have a chance to be either a backup or or on a team that's competitive. The Patriots thing is weird. That's been thrown out there by a number of people. I don't know if this is wishful thinking from Dalton. I don't think it's coming from the Patriots side at

this point. But I don't know. There's something counterintuitive about me that I would like a little like Andy Dalton starting the playoff games. I could kind of say Dalton fitting with the Patriots. I really could. I could just see. No, I'm saying like it's a four year relationship, but that that that's a possibility. Did you say that you felt like he would be a backup in Chicago to start the year. Yes, because they keep saying week one gets

through training camp, where that would be the case. Yeah, if if he was with Chicago, I think they would give Drabinsky that that too. They would give him like three weeks to mess it up at the beginning of the season. I just my head is filled with visions of like that, like critical Week three preseason game where Dalton goes you know, ten for twelve hundred ninety eight with a touchdown and Mitchell Tripicky Trobiski throws two ugly interceptions and fumbles the ball. I don't know if we

need to wait till mid September to make the switch there. Yeah, I don't know how you feel strongly either way. If if they go into camp and Trabinsky plays like he has the last two years, I think you'd have to go into the season with Dalton. It would be I would be excited to see. It would be like Andy Dalton carrying the hopes of Cincinnati on his back. It's like if if they can't win a playoff game, at least Andy Dalton, at least someone from those Marvin Lewis teams.

I could do it. Great job chopping it up just now for seconds, because it allowed me to go through the whole league and figure out every quarterback that either has some uncertainty or you know, doesn't have a job. Right now, there's only one division, by my quick um scanning, that is unaffected by this whole situation right now. It's the NFC West Garoppolo, Russell Wilson, Jard Goff, and Kyler Murray in Pro football keeps throwing out head lines like that,

Jimmy g Tom Brady Buzz will not do. So they you want me to put them on the list. All right, here's the list. Tom Brady, Andy Dalton, Ryan Tannehill, Jake Brisket, Nick Foles, Joe Flacco, Derek Carr, Philip Rivers, Dwayne Haskins, Mitch Robinsky, Matthew Stafford, Teddy Bridgewater, Jamis Winston, Cam Newton, all guys with some level of doubt slash in decision. I mean, uh, you know, we don't know where they could be. That's crazy. And we've got this extra week here.

This is what's happening this week. We got three shows. If there's no new cb A and who knows what we're gonna talk. It keeps being the same topics over and over because the the NFL added a week here this offseason very quietly. Dan, you know this. You've been talking about pushing that you wanted to keep pushing the off season out, like get in the way of other sports. But like that's this is like a purgatory week here that we normally didn't have. We still have two weeks

left till free agency, way back free agency. What happened right after the combine? Then they added one week and now it's two full weeks of just kind of build up, and especially because there's no cb A, I think teams are just kind of waiting to see what happens with that. From another angle, could have done, you know, with a with a lower level of news to discuss and kind of you know, scurring around to figure out what to do with the extra Phillentine could have done two shows.

Could have been at the Sea today or the and I'll throw this out of here again. We talked about before, why not have the draft next week and then free agency and then just does or just to freegency the week after. Well, that goes against building you know, they want to own the whole calendar. If anything, I think they'd push the draft back further. It isn't just NBA fans always want their free agency and draft flipped because they go the way that you're suggesting, where the draft

is before freeency? Where is thatfl fans often want to flip the other way. So maybe just people just aren't going to be happy no matter NBA heads, They just they will not shut up. There was oh, there is no off season in the NBA. Look how they're owning the sports world. It's all right, Colmdamn, nobody's watching your games? WHOA have you seen their ratings? They do have a long season, well followed immediately by the drafting free agency.

They do have like just a long calendar. Let's work being developing a regular season of any meaning at all. We have a the NBA is struggling on that. We have an Anchor Acorman style street fight scheduled with the starters, those guys from the NBA. They're just gonna like, whoever wins, you know, will decide what's better. And then we have to start. Are we suddenly covering the NBA? If we if we were to thoroughly beat them down and remove

to the point where they couldn't function anywhere? I mean, what are we? Or didn't it sounds just like a lot more work. And that's not what I was thinking. Okay, No, it wasn't like a like an invasion thing like where we would take over the whole. No, that's not what I say. Just in an old school fight. Okay, Tony Romo, that's the big Domino. Forget about all that other stuff. He is staying at CBS and he is making some loot. That's good works. Give me the loot. Dough green Backs,

green Backs, Sawbucks, womp them scratch. I don't even get Sawbucks. I'm sure someone will tweet me. I looked it up in a dictionary and this is what it means. Is that your Greg voice. No, it's just like you know, it's like whenever you had any open questions, you're gonna get like people, people tweeting. It's just figured out what's like the annoying voice, and it's not. It's not it's not aimed at Greg at all. Yeah, cvsn't Tony Romo have agreed to a multi year contract worth approximately, wait

for it, seventeen million dollars per season. Rap Sheep reported A bunch of other people had it, including The New York Post, which was first to report the news. The deal, Okay, a couple of things. First of all, it like triples his previous salary. It is more money than I think he ever made any time as a player. I think he averaged nine million a year in his time with the Cowboys. Now he's making seventeen. The the thing that

you could in terms of a comparison point. Similar situation with John Madden back in ninety three when he signed with Fox and he was making more than any player in the league. That's not Romo here, but seventeen million is astronomical and it will have fall out on that entire industry. You'd imagine, you know, Troy Aikman is probably gonna be looking for some money now, Like if Troy, what's Troy Aikman making right now? Seven million a year?

Six million year? Is Tony Romo? I don't think it's eleven million dollars better than Troy Aikman West, He's in a category by himself. You are, You're worth. You're worth what people are the markets willing to pay you. That's well, that's that's for sure. And I've read, I've read a lot about this, just because the whole thing has been

interesting to me. And one of the things that worked out for him beautifully timing wise, was first of all, the brevity of the previous contract and then the fact that they are you know, they have the rights negotiations coming up for the network, uh to decide who's going to cover NFL games, and CBS is a broadcast network, as anybody that's following media knows, and just you know, if you're alive, the broadcast is no longer king broadcast channels.

They don't have the the carry and the wealth they used to have compared to some of these Cable and Netflix and Disney and all that stuff. And what CBS does here is they make an investment saying, listen, we might not be the powerhouse we used to be in terms of UH as a network, but we have Tony Romo. So the the deal goes through three years at the minimum, and then the right steal comes and if they do re up and CBS keeps football, it ends up lasting I believe ten years in total, at which point I

don't know, seventeen times ten million. I mean, I don't know if it's a bargain, but it's fine, it's not. It's more worth it. Well that's true too. But like if if you found out that um Tom Selleck was making you know, five six million dollars a year on blue Bloods on CBS, people would be like, oh, yeah, that makes sense for selling people love blue Bloods. Yeah, it's like it's the number one show on TV by fire. Blue Bloods is buried, you know. It's like if you

wouldn't you wouldn't. Well, I think they season Seven's what I'm saying my point is CBS to where you know football Dorset. It's the number one show, so you your number one actor. There's even like a half of one percent scenario where CBS doesn't get football though, and then we have lost Tony Romo to essentially like two or three months of golf a year. That would be probably thematic. Friends actors made what a million in episode? You're telling me Romo is not worth a million of game. I'm

not arguing with you. Michael Thomas is arguing with you know, and my what did Michael Thomas? Michael Thomas basically said nobody who's calling the game should make more than anybody who's playing the games, to which I would say, give me a break. You're chasing a bag of wind around the park. Why can't a guy talking about you chasing a bag of went around around the park make as much money as you whatever the market will bear. Is what happened, Like, what are we doing? What? None of

you are brain surgeons. The person announcing the game has the ability to take a very dull, boring game and add some life and interest to it. That's not so there's only one Romo, there's another fifty players probably that are making between what Romo makes and whatever the number two guy makes. So it's not like that there's a lot. You know, Mikey Thomas, come back to us. Are you paying attention to the most lucrative route for a post playing career it's going into the booth or going to

a studio and being an analyst. Tony Romo just reset the entire market. Wait, when you should be celebrating the man when he's forty. Michael Thomas won't feel this way, Greg Old mark Ingram was on our coverom. I mean, it's like they're planning their post careers. There was this one report from Andrew Marchan at The New York Post that before signing Romo to the full deal, CBS offered

Peyton manning Romo's job. Have you sitting this? CBS did that preemptively that they were concerned that they weren't gonna get it or have to pay too much because of the stuff you're talking about money wise that I'm not from New York Post, so they thought he might leave

for ESPN. If he left, they needed to have somebody because the number two guy, and we love him, the bird and the Beard, but Dan founds he's not He's not bringing what Romo brings, So they would have had to find someone to make a splash to again make them enticing come re uptime. Yes, people have to be happy about this. Yeah, if you're a Monday night football too, and you're part of that production you have, it is discons is disquieting and you know not that this would

become as a huch shocked. There were some issues with that production, we know, but that you know your own company is just went all out to try to get someone other than you to headline your show. It's just not a great feeling in any job, industry, any relationship. I can't imagine why you'd want that. Did you say you think ESPN is happy about this? No, I'm seeing some people that working currently that maybe are thinking they would have incumbents will yeah, at to have the job

that job. Yeah, and yet well, you know, like Mark saying, that's a tough situation though, tough sitch because now they know you actively were trying to replace them, Like at what point, well, at least, but they'd have to know that anyone would be going up to Tony Romos in a Bruce arean situation where they're like openly, you know, talking trash about Jamis Winston. Y're talking about other people. But we're all we've documented this almost weekly on the

show since the end of the season. We're all very happy that Tony is at CBS. You stayed together for the kids and you stay with your your boy, Jimmy Nance. Good news for a ball I'm happy for jim was one of the biggest winners. Jim Nance finally catches a break everything at Vineyard Vines to celebrate Tony Romo's extension. Um, oh, this is I just want to hit on this quickly just because it's it's funny to me and it does.

Everyone take everything with a grain of salt when you hit all these reports about where people could be going, who's talking to who, where someone's likely to land, and free agency, because we're still a bit off, how we how long until free agency kicks off? Three weeks, two week weeks, it's a lot of time that's forever in football terms. So yesterday, good example, Jack Conklin, former first

round pick right tackle of the Titans. He's hitting the market and Mike Florio p FT reported that Conklin is expected to sign with the Jets. The Jets obviously a team that he didn't say expected to be fair to uh to world, this is happening now with like a game of you know, telephone, and they wrote he's expected. They just he said that he had one source that one team expected that thought, uh, you know, Conklin was

going to the Jets. Okay, So Florio had a source saying one team thought Conklind was going to New York. That sits out there for about three or four hours. He gets aggregated across the land. Everyone now assuming that Conklin's locked in as the Jets right tackle as they

begin their rebuild there. And then ESPN is Adam Schefter um at about yeah, about two and a half hours later reports that impending free agent alright tackle Jack Conklin is not expected to sign with the Jets, and not only is he So we had the Florio kind of report that said he was going to sign with the Jets, said one NFL team has been informed that Conklind planned to sign with the Jets. Jefters wasn't just like, actually

Conklin's market is still fluid, that nobody know. It was actually the report that Conklind has gonna have many suitors, but the Jets are not on his list. Yeah, that's I read that yesterday. So it was like the exact opposite spectrum and it all happened within three hours. Grain of salt, keep that in mind, keep your head on a swivel. He is not expected to land with the offensive line needed Jets. That's what was in Schefter's tweet.

I mean that feels like also when you're at that last day of the combine and I know you can just text everyone no problem, but there was a lot of information passing to and fro, just because all these people were sort of in the same room and corridors. Some wild stuff, and especially at night eightning Dan, I think we heard some people say some things that were slightly jaw dropping, but you can't go do anything with it.

But Schefter, I think he is doing a good job covering bases, you know what I mean, Like, if you're Conklin's agent, you cannot have that out there now, no matter what, whether he signs with the Jets or not. And of course whoever that is doesn't want it out there anyways because they want to see what It's still too early for that even if the expectation I'm saying, if if you're getting really excited about the conflint last Sonna, don't don't get to this. It's like, I want that

B minus guard for fifteen million dollars a year. He was a great right tackle last year. I I did some deep dive. He's he's a very good Yeah, he's a very good pass blocker or a very good run blocker, but not a very good pass blocker. That's what they said. Pf s big mistake by the Titans not giving him a fifth year option, which basically has no risk to it. And uh but he he came off an a c L injury and didn't play well in two eighteen. Lukewarm take,

and then you know more than we do. Let's be honest. Let my lukewarm take, which I don't won't think matters anymore because they're changing the fifth year option quite a bit. Is that every single player that's ever shown a pulse to just get the fifth year option, because because it's not guaranteed anyways, you might as well just do. I feel like three out of four guys, or maybe four out of five guys get it right. Some are just

such depressing. You don't do that, I said, if you've shown a pulse, Conclin was a pro bowler, is rookie year he you know, it's a great example your boy David and Joeku where it looks like he could go either way. Probably will, but he's a perfect example. He has shown something, but really not much anybody right, and it's it's fair to say that maybe the regime three regimes ago, which was only about three and a half years ago, might have felt differently, but he probably never

knows how anyone feels about him. How could you? Uh. Finally, in the news, Tom Brady and his boy Julian Edelman, We're with Jimmy Fallon, the talk show host at a Syracuse North Carolina basketball game over the weekend, and we had a viral clip mark, why don't you set this up because I think Ricky has some sound as well.

Take us through the process. Well it's it's you know, sideline courtside seats, and you've got, uh, Julian Edelman, who looked to me to be roughly suddenly seventeen years older than the last time I saw him, with to his left, Jimmy fall On into his right much closer to the camera tom Brady, and you'll hear Edelman basically when they kind of cut to these guys saying, you know, he's staying, he's staying something along those coming back, coming back and

and and you really like you need to go seek this out online too, because the look in the awkward set in looks on Tom Brady's face over the next like ten twelve seconds is uh, it is. And there was a lot of you know, even in some articles that set out there for twenty four hours, people trying

to figure out what he actually said. An NFL network came to the conclusion that what Tom Brady said at the end of all this, which initially was meant to be negative, like he's not or whatever he said, he's got it, like Edelman's got the news, but not in a way that would make you think if you're a Patriots fan, Greggy watched it would make you feel comfortable it have Yeah, likes to listen to it, But I think it's the visual you have to look at two.

He's coming back, He's coming back. He's got it. So Edelman, he's coming back, He's coming back. Some random guy to Brady goes what did you tell be him? Who's the Syracuse coaches? He still there? Yes, he has been there Forrady goes, Brady goes, he's got it. It sounds like what some people said he said he's not as he's not coming. He did say he's got They isolate the and the NFL network guys did a good job like

boosting up his audio isolating it. It's like almost like they led the show with this, and it was great because the facial expression is very much I interpreted it more as just why you know, I'm I'm on TV.

I'm aware of it. I Am trying to have no reaction, but there's no way to have no and it's just like like a grin that with his teeth beard and Edelman's reaction was funnier because it was definitely the Tom Brady is the Alpha and their relationship reaction and like, oh, did I go too far pushing the guy who's like made my career in a little sheepish he like he

like crosses his arms just for Christmas. And Jimmy Fallon typically knows what he's gonna be saying left and he just had no idea what to do with the moment either. So it's it's a nice bushel of awkwardness. I like this intrigue. Maybe that's rare among Patriots fans. You're you're legitimately playing with house money. Even if this goes terribly some ways, it's all fun for you and on. I would rather Tom Brady, and maybe we can talk about

this with Tom Curran, who's coming up. But I'd rather have Tom Brady struggle in another uniform than struggle with the Patriots. All right, I just don't want to see that. Let's that is a good way to get into it. Now, Let's get him on the phone. Mr Tom Current, Tom are you there, come right here? Yes, I am there. He is, Tom Curran, Tom Dan hands is here. Um. Whenever we talk about Tom Brady or the Patriots in general.

You know, Greg's our right hand right hand man when it comes to New England stuff, and he will cite your name more than anyone else as a quote unquote person he trusts to know the situation. And in these times we need you, Tom Curran, to give us the on the Tom Brady situation. We just finished breaking it down the Bruder film style, the Syracuse game. Um, where are we at right, now, give us a little insight,

please help us. Well, let's start right there because we now have enhanced aut y. Are you guys good with the studio? It was beautiful, okay, So it's just a question about Beeheim and he said, uh, he's got it or whatever. So we're good on now, all right, we'll move on from that. So you're saying he was definitely responding to the Beeheim question and the depths there he gave to Julian. We're not going to read into that.

The death Stary gave to Julian was the kind of death stare you give you a little brother when you say, you know what, all right, I'll go to the game with you. It'll be good for your brand. Let's go have some um and then you play it along and the camera comes over and the little brother can't help himself. He does something that makes me say, you know, I knew that you would do something that I regretted, and Is did and that's not what I was looking for.

So that's why I thought. Brady said, let's not as in, let's not here. I got that. And by the way, so far even and Tom, you and I haven't really had a chance to to really speak at length together. We're not buddies yet, but you've already cleared up a major situation. So Greg scouting of you is spot on through about ninety seconds. I mean, Tom and I go

way back. We we worked at multiple places together, and anyone that's followed the Tom Brady's career they know Tom Curran has been inextricably linked to him ever since Tom current. It was a strategic move. He wouldn't say this, but early on in the Bledsoe Brady time together, he had called Drew Bledsoe a hood ornament. In print in the Boston Herald, he would call him Robert Craft's hood ornament, a thing he put on his car to distract all

the Patriots fans, his contract from everything going on. And Tom planted his flag in a in a sixth round pick out of Michigan before anyone else did. And these players they remember these things. I mean, I'm telling you if you watched that training camp in two thousand and one, what you would have seen, if you were watching mostly would have been inescapable to you too. The skinny kid looked way better than the statue from Washington State. You've

also go ahead. It was an intervention that formed that Bilba check well to this day say thank god because I was about a week from bench in him. Anyway, you've also contributed one of my favorite words to lexicon of this podcast. Greg tells us that when he says somebody's honking, oh, that's a Tom Current original. I think I grabbed that from the Globe, but I actually think Worrio credited me for coining Swiss army knife. I can't imagine that that can't be true. That's nice. I can't

imagine that I was. He might have heard it from me first. But you know how it is up there in West Virginia. It's things washing shore there late. Um So I go way back with Greg and the great thing about covering this team, and this is where this coverage is different, is there are nuances to covering this team. It's hard to get in with individual people, it's hard to build the trust, and it's hard to cover this

team from afar. There are much There are many folks around, people who get very exercised when they get on the phone and start talking to folks. And I try and divide and take out a little bit of the stuff that I think is emotional. Hm, the people around Tom or around the team or around ownership might say, like,

right right now, what do you think is emotional? That's maybe getting out there because this last week we reached and I'm sure it'll get even crazier, but we kind of reached peak Brady speculation, especially on ESPN with their old friend, you know, Jeff Darlington's saying he'd be shocked if Brady was back there. And I get along great with Jeff, and Jeff is very well plugged in. I

believe with everything Brady right now. I just have seen this movie too many times here in New England, where you think something is absolutely, positively definitely gonna happen, and you get to a point where you walk a plank and it's hard to come back. I wouldn't be stunned if Tom Brady came back. Nikissario's back, Josh McDaniels came back,

Beyond Branched came back, Jamie Collins came back. There is a pitch and I wrote this today that will be made to Tom Brady, and it's not going to necessarily revolve around We're gonna get to this player and this player and this player in this player, and we're gonna pay you this much money and we're going to commit to you for this long. The pitch is really going to consist of, in my estimation, from what I understand, what are you doing? Where is it going to be better?

Where are they going to understand what it's like? With two minutes left, we're down for and we need to manage it. Do these guys know of situational things? Do they know what you expected? Even at the same verbi each nerosense? Are you going to coach the coaches to coach the players? Because those are all the things, Tom, that you're gonna encounter out there. It's gonna be very frustrating for you at But can they have a conversation with him like that? I mean, is that that? Is

that how you would play that conversation? I mean, I feel like I don't got to be the first thing i'd say when he's you get there? Yeah, I don't think that's the first thing I say? Is what are you thinking about? I think it's a Look, there were some mistakes we made, as you know, Tom, Um, there's things that didn't work out, there's injuries that arose. That's all in the past. I think it makes sense forward.

I think it makes sense to pitch the competitive advantage of staying in an environment that knows him so well and vice versa versus, you know, shifting gears to a lesser team that you find out half these NFL teams are running away, that would be completely unacceptable to Tom Brady. But do you think that Belichick and Robert Kraft are on the same page when it comes to the future of Tom Brady the desire to even have that conversation and do whatever it takes to keep him uh from

getting out of the building. Yes, And I reported that, you know in the story that I wrote today that Bill Belichick and the Patriots and the coaching staff is very committed to trying to convince Tom Brady to stay in. Do they make a two year commitment? I mean, had they done the Drew Brees contract last year, we wouldn't be here now, two years, fifty million dollars, damn done, we wouldn't be sitting here. They resisted the two years. They said, we want to go year to year. That's

not what Brady wanted. That's why he asked for and was given the opportunity to not be franchised because Robert Craft didn't want Brady to come back against his will. He didn't want him to feel tethered. He didn't think that was productive. So that's why we are where we are. But Robert Craft also understands that he is running a risk, but he does want him, embold and Belichick to do what he's always done, which is run the football side of things. The notion that Robert Craft interview named on

Jimmy Garoppolo isn't accurate. It crew legs, it, crew wings it, crew tentacles and it's run wild. It didn't happen, and I've been told that directly by Craft that it's a bleeping lie. I didn't do that, and I believe them. I see so much of what you're saying about the benefits of staying in New England, and I really don't want to see him go somewhere else and failed because the coaching infrastructure isn't there and the players aren't there.

But what about the idea. There are very few athletes in history I'm thinking, like Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan's on the level of Tom Brady's career where there are multiple peaks once you think he's done. He just keeps peeking and peeking and peaking. There are only a handful of guys in the history of sports like that. What about the idea of Tom Brady creating a new challenge

for himself, because there's no challenge left that exists. But the difference with those guys is they were either an individual sports or team sports, in which it was much small dollar for Tom to orchestrate that in a different place. To win part of culture on a fifty three or sixty man roster, when you get through all the people who come in and out and on a coaching staff,

is much more difficult to do. That's why to me, Tennessee makes the most sense, because there's a culture in place, and there's he's pre sold in terms of what Mike Grabel will say, just listen to him and just watch what he does, and this is what we want. So I think that's an advantage. But I think it's much harder for him to do that. But I do think that he's enthused by that in and for a large part of he'd go to the line and say, what am I gonna do on this play? I don't know

if he's going to be in the right spot. I don't know if he's gonna be in the right spot. I have no tight end. As as far as last year, I don't know what's going to happen over there at left tackle. I'm probably gonna end up having to throw this ball away. And he did that a league leading by a large amount five times. He didn't want to

go through that again this year. I was amazed. Part of the story, you know, the Syracuse game that we didn't even mention, which is that he was facetiming with with raybel rabel at In in Indianapolis certainly did not hesitate to talk about Brady, to talk about his friendship, to talk about how many challenges he thought Brady presented as a playoff opponent, Like if if he's trying to use that as a negotiating thing with Ryan Tannehill, I mean to me, it's working and and they're like FaceTime

and these are forty something your old men. First of all, do you guys does anyone FaceTime with with other men? Like I don't like all the time. I'd rather not discuss my private life. I'm just saying, who facetimes except for like with their kids? Or their wife. I didn't know. That's the thing. The fact that he's facetiming with Rabel on a random February day with Julian Edelman, that seems significant.

I don't know. They live a different life than we do, fellas, they live different right, But I do think one thing that you mentioned there, in terms of the campering and the notion that Mike Rabel is doing a lot of eyebrows, one up my unders standing as the Patriots are quote in a story I wrote recently, not going to be quote super vigilant about the tampering for two reasons. One, they don't feel their competition with other teams is financially based.

They're selling situation, not a paycheck. Even though Tom Brady doesn't want to get nickel and dimed again because he feels he has been. They're more about what's the situation that you have here as opposed to other places. Secondarily, when they sit down with him to eventually talk about money, they don't want him to be of a mind that I don't know what's out there yet. I have no idea what's going to go on. I need to go to free agency to find these things out. So there

is an advantage to that. So while I think that it does raise eyebrows, I've been told the Patriots are not going to be chasing tampering charges all over the planet, alright. Percent chance. By the way, I find that our employer is often selling a situation versus a paycheck as well, So I can understand very often part in the storm percent chance that Tom is wearing not Tom current Tom Brady is wearing a different uniform week one. Oh, you're

gonna love to see answer. All right, Well still, I mean, and I guess my my last question Tom for you is, since you have had, you know, a level headed viewpoint on this, I think we all think and uh, are you at all surprised where it is right now compared to where you thought it would have been, let's say, in October when there started to be some percolation about

his struggles and his contract was up. Are you surprised that where we're here right now, where it feels fifty fifty and you're getting these reports out there, or is this something you kind of saw coming? It was always gonna be a little um messy this time of year with the contract coming up. No, I knew it was gonna look exactly like this, probably actually worse because in August and late July before they were able to get the contract done, um, you know, Brady expected a longer amendment.

When he didn't get it, he really and the folks around him were like, okay, you know what funds fun. But now we have no players around him. He's gonna go out there. Things aren't gonna look good. And then when the Antonio Brown situation came and went, I don't think Brady was psyched about it. I really don't think Bill Belichick was psyched about the way that went down either. That became further agitation for Brady, and the season bore

it out. He ended up taking the brunt of the blame for well, he's slipped and he's forty two, you know, and so many of those games. Yeah, he he did show less pocket poison patience than in past years, but the arm strength there, the pocket mobility is still there. I don't think I've seen a physical dip from him. So most people, if you asked ten people, I think that nine would say, yeah, he's slipping. I think that as that season wore on, he wasn't that psyched about that.

That he had to bear the brunt of it, and he had to stand there and you could see that in his face. So I kind of felt that it was going to trend this way um the whole time. What fascinates me is when push comes to shove over the next ten days, fifteen days, whether the Patriots will be able to exert upon him and convince him that, look, this is the best place for you. It always has been, it always will be. We want you here. Do you

really think his pocket mobility hasn't slipped at all? Pocket mobility? No, he is using to me his ability to elude the rush. Duckers, shoulders move around people. Yeah, Like I think it's significantly Ted Carris in front of him instead of David Andrews who had Marshall Newhouse for a chunk of the season instead of trend round Um. Jack Mason didn't have as

good as season. It was a circus. Yeah. I think I think Brady Brady could be getting motivation from his his old pal Tom Curran, because a lot of people in Tom Curran spot, Uh, he's got his radio show, he's got his TV show. It's like they give up the writing part of it. We we've seen it with our careers. Our writing is dropped off, but Curran's out there, He's still spinning gems. I'm just telling you want to read about Tom's great you get a Christmas card from

Tom Brady? No, okay, no, you could read Tom's latest column, the one that he's referenced on this show today at NBC Sports Boston dot com slast Patriots, Patriots, and you could also follow him on Twitter. Tom E Curran, uh see U R R A. And I just did I don't know, I fell through the cracks. I didn't. I didn't have a follow. Now I bang a follow now, Tom, that's up to you. If you want to fall back the old user, that's your call totally. But this is

the real offseason drama we're tracking. The old user is Dan Hansis. Do you want to start FaceTime and on the regular? Absolutely? Tom, thanks for joining us and bringing some clarity to a unclear situation. All right, well, thankfully having me, guys, thank you, thank you. All right, there he goes great. You know, sometimes you have a guest on for the first time and you get you immediately since they you know, get along with our style of you know, our game. A little mirth, a little fun,

some analysis in there. Tom E. Kern, he's a he's a legitimately funny guy. Like there's a lot of sports writers that think they're that try to be funny. I can be guilty of this as well. But but in the room, Tom Kern, I'm saying, yeah, if if he's if he's at a table of people, he's he's gonna be He's gonna be on in it. Um. Okay, good stuff, guys, good show. Two more shows this week. We'll have a Wednesday program where we are efforting that's a that's a

corpo term. We're efforting to have someone to talk a little combine, uh and get a little breakdown from what happened in Indie this past week. And then remember Friday, and I think I locked her in on the show, but there's no way Colleen remembers that. By now, we will have the we will name the Connie Fox theme song. If Colleen is in the house and available on the show. We will have our top five finalists and then we

will select it. We have to actually, Ricky Hollywood, we have to kind of get on this and figure out the whole voting process and which songs formally are the five finalists. We gotta do some leg work ahead of Friday's show to do this, right. I'm just thinking about this. It's been so long since we heard some we might have to go to six. I mean we might have to just like break a ruler to alright. A couple of those early ones were gems. Absolutely, Mark, Absolutely, you

want to be the last heard. I think we we We went out with a bang with that one song that everyone's tweeting about, and then those early ones, some of them a plug just forgotten. So you gotta we won't forget that just correctly. In fact, well, how about what I'm out when we really listened to the ones that we saw as finalists. Potentially we'll listen to the latest ones first. So the last one we hear is

the first one we heard. It's gonna be hard for Greg to maintain the energy he can for that last one. Never seen him so happy, And at first I think even I was saying that that wouldn't have been a finalist. But since it's not, let's listen to it again and again. But I think ultimately that's uh, that's telling us something about this song that it to be part of that. Oh, now I see your game. You want to get that in as the sixth finalist. Even though it has a little bit of a dig at the face it also

has it was more a praiseworthy of Colleen. Right, all due respect to Gonzo, A part of it was that he would be cast aside in an NFL player would then marry Connie. I think, yeah, it was a cast system scenario where Gonzo was being viewed as not really worthy of what Colleen has flowered into its bed. I don't agree with it was fun word play that happens, but it's all it is a little funny to me that remember you you got on your horse and you

were like, how dare that? One man say so a joke of Colleen's expense and his song uh from the first round of songs, and then this guy he is causing trouble within Colleen's family structure, and you're like, it's cool, yeah, I mean, Colleen's the starry consistency that even Gonzo knows that well. I mean, you're you're making declarative statements about someone else's family. Again, I did ask Colleen if Gonzo

is aware of this competition. She said he has no idea, which is kind of funny the more you think about it, because John is in so many of these songs. Better for him not to know what's happening, I would I would suggest, all right, let's go. Thanks for listening to me Around the NFL Podcast presented by Into It Quick Books, official sponsor of the NFL. Stan Hands is signing off for Quiet Storm, the Maleman, the Old Boss, Hollywood behind the Glass, and thank you again to Tom all Right

for joining us do when they Hey, what's coming on? Guys? Hey, guys Time